Riot will be testing out a surrender vote change on League of Legends patch 13.2 that’ll make it easier to surrender games that are likely lost.
League of Legends games can last a long time compared to other competitive multiplayer games. Where most other titles cap off at around 30 minutes when it comes to match duration, League games can go anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour in some cases.
That said, some matches can be decided within minutes. If every lane loses 5 minutes in, pulling the game back into your favor is incredibly difficult in most cases. Yet, if one person on the team decides the match is worth playing out, you won’t be able to surrender until 20.
Coming on patch 13.2, Riot is implementing a change to surrender voting that’ll make it just a bit easier to surrender at 15. This is the first surrender change in 2 and a half years. That said, it’s just a test, and there could be some serious ramifications to the change.
Surrender vote change being tested in LoL patch 13.2
On patch 13.2, surrender votes raise at 15 minutes won’t require a unanimous vote to go through. Instead, it’ll only take the normal 4/5 votes to go through. Keep in mind that this change will only be implemented into normal games.
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This may sound like a small change, but making it easier to surrender could massively affect League of Legends games.
Our data shows that comeback rates when a team fails a 4/5 yes early surrender (before 20 min) are low; teams have a generally good sense of what a "winnable" game is. However it's important that opponents have time to feel powerful with a lead and games aren't abandoned too soon
— Chris Roberts (@RiotAuberaun) January 6, 2023
According to Auberaun, a Riot employee, data shows that teams generally don’t come back after a failed early surrender vote. He also mentions that it’s important for the enemy team to be able to have fun with their lead and “feel powerful”, just as much as it’s important for the team at a deficit to have enough time to give the game a fair shake.
In replies to the tweet, Auberaun said that they’ll be directly monitoring “impacts to scaling champ winrates” due to the change. It’s very possible that champions who take a while to get the ball rolling could be negatively impacted.
Thus, the reason this is being implemented in normal games first rather than ranked games. While they’re seriously considering adding it to ranked later on, they’re keeping this change off the ranked ladder for now due to its potential to be “pretty disruptive”.